John Jay Dining Hall may have seen the salad lines dwindle Monday night as health-conscious students crowded into Low Library to see America’s food sweetheart Michael Pollan.
Pollan spoke at a sold-out event sponsored by the American Studies department at 6 p.m. on Monday, discussing the path that led him to become the leader of a growing food reform movement. A graduate of Columbia’s masters program in English, Pollan discussed how Columbia influenced his future work, stating, “One of the wealth springs of my work is in that building [Philosophy Hall].”
He also described the profound influence that American transcendentalists Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau had on him—he even wrote one of his two masters theses on Thoreau’s landmark work, Walden.
What brought Pollan from the preponderance of nature to food, he explained, is what he perceived as gaps in the environmental movement—its neglect of the intersection of nature and culture. “It’s either virgin land, or it’s raped. We don’t have a term for marriage,” he said, describing what he considers the problematic environmental movement.
Sarah Phillips, an assistant professor of history who teaches the course titledFood and American Life, introduced Pollan and comparing him to Rachel Carson, whose book Silent Spring brought ecological issues to the societal forefront in the 1960s.
In addition to discussing his path to food writing, Pollan also read selections from four of his five books. The passages he chose to read exemplified his unique and creative approach to scientific and social issues.
In The Botany of Desire, Pollan explains how he explores the natural history of different plants and how they have co-evolved with humans. The Omnivore’s Dilemma explores four meals, ranging from a $14 McDonald’s dinner to a meal Pollan made from scratch (which included learning to hunt and killing a wild boar),. The book also documents the exact journey of each element of each meal from the ground to the diner’s plate.
His latest novel, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, from which he did not read, was published in January 2008 and gives a historical background of various foods complete with guidelines regarding the consumption of processed and nutrient-deficient foods.
Pollan ended his discussion by emphasizing the importance of a food movement that creates real political change. He urged listeners to “Vote with your fork, but also vote with your vote.”
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